Los Angeles — The campaign of GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, who decisively won the California Republican state GOP straw poll Saturday, spent $25,000 on the effort — one his backers say displayed a “depth of support” and organizational strength for Paul in the 2012 campaign.

Paul’s commanding win gave him 44.9 percent of the 883 votes cast by attendees at the 3-day state convention at the JW Marriott Hotel here. Coming in second was Texas Gov. Rick Perry with 29.3 percent, followed by a dramatic drop-off for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 8.8 percent. Rep. Michele Bachmann came in an embarrassing fourth, with 7.7 percent. The rest of the GOP presidential pack hardly made a ripple: former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman (2 percent), former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain (1.8 percent), and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich coming in even after the pizza exec (1.7 percent).

We caught up with Paul backstage at the state GOP convention at the JW Marriott here, where in an interview iwth the Chronicle, he talked about issues including his views that “American policies” had a role in 9-11, his opposition to federal mandates in areas like health care issues. And he appears to leave the door open — just a crack — on whether he would mount an independent run for president if he doesn’t win the nomination.

Here’s our full story on this today in the Chronicle. And here’s a portion of our interview with him as caught by our award-winning SFChronicle/SFGate Shaky Hand Productions camera:

Paul’s campaign is clearly elated with the straw poll results, and made the most extensive effort to organize and have a big presence at the convention attended by 1,000 GOP activists.

They acknowledge spending $25,000 to buy tickets — which were $100 each — for the straw poll; by contrast, there were unconfirmed reports that Perry’s campaign spent just $10,000 on the event.

But the hundreds who showed up to cast ballots, campaign, and back the candidate “shows you have some depth of support” that the other candidates didn’t match, said John Dennis, who heads Paul’s CA campaign.

For candidates like Bachmann, the results have to be particularly grating; she not only showed up, but she delivered the keynote address to kick off the CA convention Friday– to a somewhat cool reception. (It didn’t help that she ignored all questions by the media, as our colleagues at Calbuzz (“Bachmann thugs block offshore oil questions”) reported.)

Bottom line: The CA GOP straw poll is not nearly as hefty or critical as the Ames Iowa Straw Poll. But for Paul — just barely edged out by Bachmann in Iowa, a win she used to grab big bragging rights and momentum — California’s win has to be sweet revenge.